Throughout the Muslim fast of Ramadan, the Big Four News Apps repeatedly promoted Qatari state media while completely ignoring content from one of the most popular English-language, right-leaning outlets.
Apple News, Google News and Yahoo News altogether promoted articles from Qatari state media Al Jazeera 22 times from Feb. 18 to March 19, 2026. In some cases, the news apps even propped up articles presenting terrorist leaders in a positive light or deliberately misrepresenting Israeli and American operations, while ignoring violent attacks on U.S. soil. In contrast, during that same period, The Daily Mail — which is consistently a top 20 most-read news outlet in the U.S. — did not appear a single time in the Big Four News Apps’ top 20 daily stories. Microsoft’s MSN was the only news app not to link to either Al Jazeera or The Daily Mail throughout the entire 30-day period. Newsmax, Breitbart News, The Washington Times and The Washington Examiner were similarly excluded.
Strikingly, besides ghosting The Daily Mail, MSN did not provide a single article in its top 20 concerning four violent attacks that occurred during March in Austin, Texas, in New York City, at Old Dominion University and in West Bloomfield, Michigan. Yahoo News did not cover the university shooting, where a previously convicted ISIS supporter killed an ROTC instructor, Col. Brandon Shah. Google News did not cover the New York City attempted bombing of protestors by two Muslim men.
Google News was by far the most aggressive in pushing Al Jazeera, promoting 19 articles from the outlet in its top 20 during the course of Ramadan. For example, on March 4, Google News pushed as its seventh article was Al Jazeera’s “Iran postpones Khamenei’s farewell as Israel threatens to kill successor.” Al Jazeera described Khamenei as “the country’s spiritual leader” without mentioning that he oversaw what the White House described as a global “terror network” or that his government reportedly ordered over 40,000 protesters killed, according to the International Center for Human Rights.
Similarly, on March 6, Google News promoted a story headlined “At least 217 killed in Israel’s Lebanon attacks as Beirut, south, east hit.” The Al Jazeera piece referred to the “Hezbollah group” as the target of Israel’s military operation, but failed to mention that Hezbollah is a terrorist group. Al Jazeera only mentioned Hezbollah’s strikes on Israel 15 paragraphs in and downplayed them as much less serious than Israeli counterstrikes.
The Israeli government has stated that it has been hitting Hezbollah military targets, and even Al Jazeera acknowledged that Israel gives Lebanese civilians advance notice. On March 11, United Nations Watch Director Hillel Neuer shared a map showing that Hezbollah strikes on civilian targets blanketed northern Israel.
On March 17, Google News’ top article of the morning was Al Jazeera’s “Iran confirms security chief Larijani, Basij commander Soleimani killed.” Larijani threatened to “wipe[] out” President Donald Trump in the days leading up to his own assassination, according to translations of Arab language statements by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
As the top security official of the regime, Larijani oversaw an international terrorist network and a domestic dictatorship. But Al Jazeera promoted a quote from the Supreme National Security Council of Iran honoring Larjani: “After a lifetime of striving for the elevation of Iran and the Islamic Revolution, he finally reached his long-cherished wish, answered the call of truth, and proudly attained the blessed rank of martyrdom in the service front.”
Apple News only promoted Al Jazeera once in a Feb. 27 article about abortive talks between the Iranian regime and the American government. Operation Epic Fury launched the following day.
Yahoo News included an Al Jazeera article in its top 20 morning stories twice during Ramadan. The first time, on Feb. 27, Yahoo chose an article about the Pakistan-Afghanistan war, and the second time, on March 4, its top article was Al Jazeera’s “What we know on day five of US-Israeli attacks on Iran.” In the article Yahoo promoted, Al Jazeera accused U.S. and Israeli forces of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Iran, which the forces denied.
Methodology: From February 18 through March 19, MRC researchers examined the top 20 stories featured on the Big Four News Apps (Apple News, Google News, Microsoft's MSN and Yahoo News) each day at approximately 8:30 AM ET.
